ON THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

A visual documentation of the years leading up to, during and after the historic proclamation of Ukraine's independence prepared by Tania D'Avignon, associate photographer of HURI, is provided in this four-page photo essay.

• The exclusion zone around Chornobyl, site of the 1986 nuclear accident that fanned popular opposition to Moscow and Communist Party rule in Ukraine.
  
  
• The largest of new mass organizations, Rukh, held its founding congress in September 1989.
  
  
• Ukrainian Greek-Catholics retake possession of St. George Cathedral from the Russian Orthodox Church in August 1990.
  
  
• A student hunger strike in Kyiv in October 1990 led to numerous political concessions by the Soviet Ukrainian government, including the removal of Prime Minister Vitaliy Masol.
  
  
• A cultural festival in Kyiv in the spring of 1991, one of many signs of re-emerging interest in historical and cultural traditions.

INDEPENDENCE ARRIVES

• A mass demonstration at the foot of the Lenin Monument on October Revolution Square (soon to be renamed Independence Square) on August 23, 1991.
  
  
• A pro-independence rally in front of the Supreme Council on August 21, 1991.
  
  
• Demolition of the Lenin monument on Independence Square in September of 1991.
  
  
• Debates in the Supreme Council during the fall of 1991.
  
  
• The first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk (December 1991 - July 1994).

IN DEFENSE OF INDEPENDENCE

• Speakers at a rally on the seventh anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster held in Kyiv in April 1993: Volodymyr Yavorivsky (left), chairman of the Parliament's Committee on the Consequences of Chornobyl, and Dr. Yuri Shcherbak, minister of environmental protection.
  
  
• Russian-language graffiti in Kyiv in September of 1991 demonstrate that support for Ukrainian independence transcended linguistic and ethnic divisions.
  
  
• A vocal defender of Ukraine's statehood in Parliament, Larysa Skoryk.
  
  
• Ukraine's first minister of defense, Kostiantyn Morozov (1991-1993).
  
  
• Crimean Tatars express their support for independent Ukraine in Kyiv at the time of the August 29, 1991, visit of a Russian delegation led by Vice-President Aleksandr Rutskoi to discuss Ukrainian-Russian relations in the aftermath of Ukraine's proclamation of independence.

FIVE YEARS OF UKRAINIAN STATEHOOD

• A 1994 placard of the Democratic Party of Ukraine demonstrates the emergence of political pluralism.
  
  
• Adm. Volodymyr Bezkorovainy of the Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet and Metropolitan Filaret at a dedication ceremony launching the coast guard ship Sahaidachny in Kerch in June 1994.
  
  
• The Parliament of Ukraine in plenary session in 1992.
  
  
• And life goes on. A young couple shops for a wedding dress in Zapo-rizhzhia in 1995.
  
  
• U.S. President Bill Clinton with President Leonid Kuchma, reviewing the honor guard at the Mariyinsky Palace in Kyiv on May 11, 1995.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 18, 1996, No. 33, Vol. LXIV

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